How Florida went red

 DC Daily Journal:

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Recently, Ron DeSantis appeared on Fox News and declared that Democrats shouldn’t even bother with trying to become relevant again in the state of Florida, saying it’s “off the board” for them entirely.

Speaking with Fox News Host Maria Bartiromo, DeSantis said that the Florida state data shows how there is a huge discrepancy of Republican voter registration compared to Democrats in the state. Simply put, there’s millions more Republicans registering.

“You’re talking about a million-plus voter registration shift,” Ron DeSantis said to Maria Bartiromo. DeSantis attributed this partly to voters switching from Democrat to Republican in the state.

“Part of that, I think, is a response locally where people are more likely to switch from Democrat to Republican in Florida, nonparty to Republican, than vice versa. That’s been an important component of it,” DeSantis added.

The second reason he gave for this voter registration shift is the migration people have made from radical Leftist regions like Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York City to the Sunshine State.

“I do think that migration has skewed amongst people who come to Florida, not because they want to change the policies to reflect in Illinois or California or New York, but because they appreciate how Florida has done it differently from where they’re coming from,” Florida’s governor added.

According to a report from the outlet USA Today, Republicans have the largest voter registration advantage of any political party in the Sunshine State over the past 40 years.

“Republicans now hold the biggest advantage in voter registration either major party has held in almost four decades,” the USA Today report noted.

Later in the interview, Ron DeSantis made the claim that Florida is “off the board” for Democrats and said it is absolutely “a Republican state.”

“Maria, Florida is off the board. It is a Republican state. You have covered politics. We used to be a one-point state. Every election hung on, how would Florida go? That is not true anymore. And I think that’s a good thing for the party,” he added.

For Donald Trump, this absolutely changes the way he approaches the 2024 presidential election entirely as he gears up for a rematch against incumbent Democrat Joe Biden this November.

Donald Trump might spend a little bit of campaign time and money in Florida, but there’s no need to spend nearly as much as he had to in 2016 and 2020. All the polling experts agree with Ron DeSantis that unless there’s something unexpected that comes out of nowhere, Trump is carrying Florida in the 2024 election cycle.
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I think the same thing is happening in Texas.  There were probably several factors but one that stands out is both state's reaction to Covid.  The Blue states in many cases attempted to shut down businesses and schools. That was a fatal mistake. Another aspect is that both Florida and Texas opposed Biden's unpopular open borders policies.